South Korean concerns over credibility of North Korean war threat

Updated
April 01, 2013 08:57:00

North Korea has vowed to strengthen its nuclear weapons, a day after announcing it's on a war footing with South Korea. Tensions have risen sharply since the United Nations tightened sanctions in response to the North's nuclear tests, and since the United States and South Korea conducted military exercises south of the border. On Saturday the North declared it was in a 'state of war' with the South and warned that any provocation would escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict.

TONY EASTLEY: North Korea has vowed to bolster its stock of nuclear weapons a day after announcing it's on a war footing with South Korea.

Tensions have risen sharply since the United Nations tightened sanctions in response to the North's nuclear tests, and since the United States and South Korea conducted military exercises south of the border.

North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy is in Seoul.

Mark Willacy, good morning, what does it mean by an official war footing?

MARK WILLACY: Well according to the North Tony that means that technically they are in a state of war with the South. Now it could be argued that they've always been in state of war, at least for the last 60 years since the Korean war was ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. So technically, probably, they've been a state of war for 60 years.

But the North is saying what's going to happen now is that every decision involving South Korea, or issues involving the South will be treated through what it's calling its war time protocols. We've already seen the fact that they've scrapped the last military hotline between the two nations, they've said that that truce, ending the Korean war 60 years ago, is now null and void.

So everyone's basically sitting back and waiting to see what it actually means because as they say, the two Koreas have technically been at war for 60 years.

TONY EASTLEY: Is this threat of nuclear retaliation by the north credible?

MARK WILLACY: Look I think the threat of retaliation is being seen as credible, whether its nuclear retaliation is another thing.

What is not very clear is whether the North could carry out its threat to hit the US mainland, to hit US bases in Guam and Hawaii. Most people say that's just, they're not just capable of it, they haven't got the military hardware capable of doing it.

What people are really worried about is what we do know about the North and that is that the North could launch about half million rounds of artillery against the south in the first hour of a war.

TONY EASTLEY: Mark, what are the reasons that have brought this on at this time?

MARK WILLACY: That's a very good question Tony and that's what everybody's asking themselves, and I suppose you could say it's probably a number of issues and to sum them up you've got a new young, untested leader in North Korea, Kim Jong-un. He's entering his second year as supreme commander - he wants to prove his mettle, that's one theory.

A second theory is that he could be testing the new South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, who's only just taking up the oath of office and it's often been the case in the past that North Korea tests new South Korean leaders with a crisis. This one's a bit bigger than usual.

The third reason could possibly be that he is surrounding himself, Kim Jong-un that is, with some real hard-liners. We know he's appointed a man who's thought to have overseen the shelling of an island in 2010, a South Korean island, and another man who's also believed to be behind the sinking of the Cheonan; that was the South Korean corvette in 2010 as well.

So maybe they have some influence over the new young leader as well. So there's a number of reasons, although no-one can really tell looking over the into hermit kingdom what really is going on.

TONY EASTLEY: Mark Willacy, how are people there in Seoul, where you are, reacting to this? After all they have put up with this sort of language from their northern neighbours before.

MARK WILLACY: That's right, and look I think, Tony, most people are about to get up and get ready for another working week here. The roads will be choked with traffic here in Seoul as they always are at peak hour every morning.

You know, talking to a couple of people on the way into South Korea at the airport overnight, most people said look, it's just more of the same. You know, yes the rhetoric's a little bit more strident than usual but we've just got to get on with our life, we can't just not turn up to work, we can't just sort of stay at home and wait for the war to start. We just think it's more talk.

Although there was one of two people that I did talk to who said look, yeah we are a bit worried, this is not usual. This level of rhetoric, we're worried that one small incident like the shelling of that island in 2010, the sinking of that South Korean corvette in 2010, that could be repeated and there could be something that gets really out of hand very fast.